Azkaban Tales
by flames and roses
Summary: What goes on in the grim and soulless wizarding prison? Oneshot series about Azkaban and their prisoners. Non-consistent updating. Rating for possible triggers; any necessary warnings in the A/Ns. Chapter 3, All That Is Left: It was a long path for Barty Crouch Jr. from the screaming boy in the courtroom to the remorseless Death Eater at the end of GoF, but
1. Crossword Puzzles (Sirius Black)

**A/N: Hi! New story! This is just a oneshot series that I'll update whenever I'm sick of MWPJ and Namesake, so don't expect this to be regular. But please R &R!**

 **Disclaimer:**

 **I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER.**

 **More info below. Onwards!**

Chapter 1: Crossword Puzzles

Overall, Cornelius Fudge loved his job. Absolutely — being Minister for Magic was all of his dream fulfilled! He was at the top of the ladder, the ruler of wizarding Britain. And he hardly had any responsibility. He knew he was a pawn of Lucius Malfoy, but he was happy to push the decisions of to someone else if it meant that he could stay the figurehead without even appearing to be nothing but a figure head. Yes, Cornelius loved his job. Almost every aspect of it was perfect; amazing.

Almost.

But this part? He hated it.

It was time for the Minister's annual obligatory visit to Azkaban to ensure everything was in order. And Cornelius Fudge _hated_ Azkaban. The dementors terrified him no matter how many Patronuses surrounded his entourage, and then there were the prisoners themselves.

"Good day, Minister Fudge," the Azkaban head jailor greeted cordially, shaking Cornelius's hand.

"Yes, yes, good day to you too, Shafiq," he replied, intentionally not using the title 'lord' to flaunt his own status.

Shafiq noticed, and his left eyebrow twitched, but other than that he gave no indication of his irritation. "Right, this way sir, this way." He ushered the Ministry group through the gates and into the prison.

* * *

It was on the way back that it happened.

Cornelius was striding along towards the exit, definitely _not_ looking anywhere but ahead, when a hoarse voice croaked from his side, "Minister… Minister, please… wait…"

A shiver ran down Cornelius's spine as he forced himself to turn and look at the prisoner who had spoken — for it had been a prisoner — and found himself looking into the haunted eyes of Sirius Black. He swallowed nervously, then spoke.

"What is it, Black?"

The haggard man licked his lips. "Do you… the _Daily Prophet_ … do you have a copy?"

"Why would you want the paper?" he questioned harshly.

"Crosswords… crossword puzzles. I… miss them…"

 _Crossword puzzles?_ But what was the harm in it? Cornelius dug into his robe, then drew out the recentest edition of the _Prophet_ , then threw it through the bars, careful not to go too close.

Black fumbled, then caught it, the pages slightly crumpled. He flipped through them and located the correct one, then looked up again.

"Quill?"

At this one of the bodyguards spoke up. "No sharp objects allowed, Minister."

Cornelius nodded readily. "Right. No quills, Black."

Black shrugged, as though he'd been expecting this answer, then lifted an overgrown fingernail and scraped it along the flaky walls of his cell. Cornelius's bodyguards made to leave, but the Minister held up a hand.

"Wait. I want to see this."

Black's gaze flickered up briefly, and astonishingly, his lips tugged up in a tiny smile. Then he turned back to the paper and started scanning the clues, mouthing them as he read. Within thirty seconds, he had the first word figured out, and used the black soot-like substance (Cornelius didn't want to think of what it could really be) to painstakingly inscribe letters onto the sheet. He let out an awful, sardonic laugh that shook Cornelius to the bones. Of course, the word had been _A-Z-K-A-B-A-N_.

"We're going."

The lead jailor nodded, and went to reach for the paper to take it from Black's hands, but Cornelius stopped him. "Let him keep," he said.

Grudgingly, Shafiq withdrew his hand and lead the Minister and his entourage out of the prison. Back in his cell, Black hadn't even lifted his head from the paper.

Ten minutes after the Minister had left, Sirius Black placed down the paper. The puzzle was completely filled in, and he moved onto the stories around it. He scanned them, then two words caught his attention: _Harry Potter_.

Gut clenching, the weary man read the text around it. Then he lifted his eyes to the image above, and studied the happy looking family on it. His eyes zeroed in on the boy who had been named as 'Harry Potter's best friend'.

And then to his shoulder.

And the rat on it.

And he let out a god-awful scream as he realised what he was seeing.

 _Wormtail_ , he thought. And then, _don't worry, Harry. I'm coming._

 **A/N: There you have it! The first in a series of standalones about Azkaban. Not in any order. The next one will be the mass escape during fifth year, then Umbridge's trial, then Sirius's escape, then... well, we'll see. I have absolutely no idea when I will next update. Sorry. But I will update MWPJ in a week or so, and Namesake in a couple of weeks. And I will be posting some random oneshots soon also.**

 **Anyway, gotta go move this from the plot bunny area of my profile to the actual stories area of it.**

 **Review!**

 **Bye!**


	2. The Darkening Mark (Bellatrix Lestrange)

**A/N: Still rather bored of Fred 'n' George (although I am working on YoB) so I wrote another of these. Way shorter than the first, but whatever. Also, a huge thanks to those who reviewed with some brilliant suggestions — I'll get to those. Thanks also to my beta-reader Cae-Leigh Anne for being super-quick at reading this and generally helping it be worth reading.**

 **Disclaimer:**

 **I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER.**

 **Read on!**

Chapter 2: The Darkening Mark

In a dark, dank cell, in a tall, imposing, hopeless-feeling building on a tiny island in the middle of the North Sea sat a woman.

The woman was huddled in a corner of this cell, the one furthest from the bars. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and her left arm was lying against them. The arm was bare, as the ratty, torn sleeve had long since fallen off. The woman was staring intently at the arm — or rather, the black tattoo two thirds of the way down it.

The tattoo was black in colour and slightly raised and thick. It took the shape of a human skull with the front half of a snake curling out of the mouth.

The tattoo had not always been black. For the first five years the woman had had it, it had been, but for the next fourteen, it had been a dull, faded grey. Now, however, it was black again, as it had been for the past half-year.

The tattoo was in reality a branding mark and a communication instrument. The woman had been fleeing twangs from the tattoo more and more frequently recently, and she knew something big was happening.

The tattoo, of course, was a Death Eater's Dark Mark.

Another large, rather painful pull came from the Mark, and the woman's head snapped up, her long, unkempt and dreadlocked black hair flying around her head. The automatic response for one of this pulls was to apparate out and let the Mark lead her, but her she could not do that. Oh, how she _longed_ to do that.

The woman, of course, was Bellatrix Lestrange.

The Mark was getting darker and darker as she watched it. Bellatrix wasn't sure how something could get darker than midnight black, but it was. This meant _he_ was closer.

Closer…

Closer…

BOOM!

Ah. _So_ he _isn't going for the subtle approach then_ , ran through her long-maddened mind. That was alright. She didn't particularly like the subtle approach anyway.

The prison shook with the force of a succession of identical blows, and Bellatrix ran to the front of her cell and watched as the dementors bore down on hapless human guards, Kissing them and then gliding towards the locked prison cells.

The prison doors opened as one, and Bellatrix shuffled to her feet and out of them.

"He has returned… he has returned… My lord, you have returned!" A maniacal grin split her face, then she started to laugh — a crazy hysterical laugh that pierced the crumbling walls of the prison and rose high, high in the air.

 **A/N: Probably not as good as the first, but I'll try and do better later.**

 **On another note, I am very angry. One of my friends' mum told me that _no one cared about Sirius or Remus_. What the hell? I care about them! Show this crazy lady we care about the Marauders!**

 **And review!**

 **Bye!**


	3. All That Is Left (Bartemius Crouch Jr)

**A/N: Welcome to another stint in Azkaban. We'll see madness, a total lack of names and even in verse writing. But before we come to that a few items of business.**

 **Review replies:**

 **AlwaysHufflepuff: You're... partly in luck, although not full. The whole visit might be in another chapter. I have ideas, but for now that's all they are.**

 **harrypottercrookshanks: Brilliantly uncapitalised review. Thanks for the compliment, and another idea of course. Goodbye!**

 **Alicia Olivia Mirza: I always thought he would have to, yeah?**

 **Fic recommendation:** ** _Danse Macabre_ , by RarissimaAvis. One of the best reincarnation fics Ive read!**

 **Disclaimer:**

 **I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER.**

 **Trigger warning: Madness, amnesia, despair. Not too bad, though.**

 **Whew, it's been a long time. But hey, sporadic, irregular updates whenever, I'm bored of my other stuff, right?**

 **Okay, yeah, ten months does make me a little guilty.**

 **But hey, here we have it, a new update! So don't be too mad. Just read!**

Chapter 3: All That Is Left

His tears had long since dried, but his throat was still hoarse from shouting, screaming, pleading.

 _Life sentence._ It hadn't quite sunk into the sandy-haired boy's mind. His father — his own father — had banged the gavel down and sealed the boy's fate.

He could picture perfectly the hardened, loveless face of the man who had raised him staring him down from above, deaf to his mother's cries beside him. Well, he supposed, the man never really had cared enough to give any proper effort into raising him. It had always been his mother.

His mother. It was only the thought of her that had stopped him from admitting. At least this way she could still doubt, still hope that her beloved son was innocent. Her cries haunted him, begging his father also, as he sat on the cold hard floor of what would be his room for the rest of his foreseen life.

* * *

It had finally sunk into the boy's. He would stay in this small cell for as long as he lived. That could be seventy years, for something he had done in the span of a single night. He'd been on a drunken high, caught up with his old friends, and as it wore off his whole life had crashed around his ears.

But, as one of his non-human jailors floated pasted and the cell lost all warmth, he could barely summon the energy to be horrified. He was worn, a shell, and had nothing left.

The crazy woman across from him was laughing again. At first she had been laughing at their human, self-righteous jailors, but now… now he didn't know why she laughed. She was cracked and bent, and with the poised, pure blooded mask gone and her madness was seeping, oozing out.

He remembered her from the night that had started this all. But… he couldn't remember… when was that? It had been so long…

He turned and looked at the scratch marks on the wall. One for every day he had been here. He made them each time food was brought, cold gruel slopping out of a rusty, fake silver bowl. He had made them so he could keep a record, of the time he spent in this small cell. But now he couldn't count them. They blurred before his eyes. What was he looking at? The dirty grey scratches on the dirty grey wall became great mass of misery.

Slowly, the cracked and maddened woman's cackle lulled him to sleep, like a twisted lullaby. His last thought before sinking into a murky oblivion was that it fit this place, didn't it? A hellish song for hell on Earth.

* * *

Earth?

What was that?

The boy couldn't quite remember. It was like an itching at the back of his thoughts, the word ringing a bell in his mind (not that he had much of one left to ring in). The jailor who had brought his food had muttered it: Worst job on Earth, this.

The boy did not know how he felt about those jailors. They were the ones who didn't seem to emit a negative energy and suck the thoughts right out of him. Or were they? Everyone was negative here. He was negative, just a hole in space, slowly filling up every inch of what ha once been a sandy-haired boy, screaming, screaming…

What?

Where had that come from?

A sandy-haired boy. Was that him? He tugged a lock of matted, filthy hair from around his waist to his eyes. It could have been sandy coloured, once. He'd know better if he still knew what sand looked like.

 _Earth._ That was what he was thinking of right now.

But he just couldn't. Couldn't…

* * *

Where…

When…

 _Clatter clatter._ Grey-brown slop.

He picked it up, poured it down. He waited for the bars to close again.

Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one… _Clang!_

He hauled himself over to the wall. With one long, filthy nail, he scratched another line into the dirty grey wall.

Why…

He didn't know. It was a habit.

* * *

It was a habit to ignore the cackles

and the mutters

and even the dread-cold

but this wasn't habit.

The boy was screaming, crying begging. He couldn't ignore this. It brought back… memories

Another boy, screaming and begging:

 _fatherpleasenodon'tdothisididn'tdoiti'minnocentplease_!

And another memory:

 _nonononononononoyou'renosonofmine_

 _you're no son of mine_

 _you're. no. son. of. mine._

 _You're._

 _No._

 _Son._

 _Of._

 _Mine._

Memories.

* * *

It had taken him twelve scratches. He could remember this now, just as he could now remember that the twelve scratches meant twelve days.

Memories.

He had them now: had memories of Earth, of growing up and making choices both good and bad (the memory of the black mark on his arm was one of those) and memories of this place: Azkaban.

He had memories of people, too: a tall, stern and thin grey man that elicited feelings of anger and being wronged and a burning desire for… he didn't know, but it was horrifying and satisfying and eating him up and he seemed to remember that this thing should be cold but it wasn't and he wanted it to be burning, to burn that man. His father.

He remembered his mother: warm and soft and naïve. She elicited feelings that were just like her herself, but the boy's other memories taught him better than to give into such emotions, so happy and so forbidden; these memories he did not want taken, but if they were good they would be.

Above all, he remembered the sandy-haired, child-like boy, the one he once was. But he remembered only so he knew what he no longer could be. His hair was black now, black as the black inside him and he wasn't a child. He wasn't that boy anymore.

Because he also remembered…

Well, You Know Who.

* * *

There was thin patch of sunlight in his cell today. This was rare, and only happened after he had made hundreds of scratches — after hundreds of days, he reminded himself viciously.

He glanced out through the bars; madwoman Bellatrix was aslepep today - she wouldn't bother him. He got up, stretching his rarely used legs and relishing in the little pops along his neck as he spun it. He reached the window and clenched the bars in his fists, staring out hungrily at the sea as it crashed own around the island. It was harsh and unwelcoming.

He wanted to get out to it.

Today was the boy's lucky day, as it turned out.

Footsteps sounded in the hall outside his cell. He turned in confusion. Other than the wizards who delivered his gruel twice a day, he never heard footsteps, as the only other people free in the prison did not have feet to make them.

They had passed the other cells and were slowing down. The boy registered with surprise that this must mean they were here for him. He did not have more time to contemplate, though; three people came into view around the corner. He froze.

It was not the jailor that froze the boy. Jailors were common in Azkaban - well, as common as a place with little to no free human being. Although, the boy noted, he was in an Auror outfit, but this did not surprise him. He had seen other prisoners receiving visitors, all accompanied by the extra security a fully trained Auror provided, rather than the regular guards.

It was not the second person that brought him up short, either. He had known she would come, eventually. How could she not have? It was not that he had been awaiting the visit, but more like… tentatively expecting it. He had know that she would eventually persuade his father to allow it.

Bt the boy had never expected the man to come too.

They met eyes, the two who shared the same name but had led so very different lives. The let his father see what had happened to him through his own eyes. He saw the choices and the suffering; the madness and the the regaining of control. He saw what had happened to the young person before him, who had once screamed for mercy in a ruthless courtroom. He saw all that was left of that boy. And the boy found his tongue first.

"Hello, father."

"Hello… Barty."

 **A/N: I know,t hat was long for a oneshot series. But it was SUCH FUN WRITING! Anyway, will use some of the ideas form this fics reviews for the next chapter, and** **will update MWPJ very soon** **.**

 **Of course, some pretty little reviews would motivate me... *hint, hint***

 **Bye!**


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